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Knox school board to consider anti-ESSA resolution

Knox County school board members this week will consider whether to condemn the state's proposed letter-grade rating system for school districts and urge the General Assembly to replace it with a "community-based accountability system."

Knox school board to consider anti-ESSA resolution

Knox County school board member Patti Bounds on Feb. 20, 2015, during its annual legislative luncheon with area legislators at SmartBank branch in Cedar Bluff.(Photo: MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL)Buy Photo

Knox County school board members this week will consider whether to condemn the state's proposed letter-grade rating system for school districts and urge the General Assembly to replace it with a "community-based accountability system."

Board Chair Patti Bounds on Friday called the proposed system, which would assign schools grades ranging from A to F based on student achievement and growth, "very harmful."

"It's just not accurate and does more damage to the people in those communities," Bounds said. "They could be doing 10 things great and that will not show up in the letter grade the way it's all calculated."

Bounds said she would support the resolution, which was introduced by Vice Chair Amber Rountree two months after Tennessee Education Commissioner Candice McQueen rolled out the proposal to comply with a new federal education law. The law, known as Every Student Succeeds Act or ESSA, was signed by former President Barack Obama in December 2015 to replace No Child Left Behind.

The federal law left it to states to draft plans to hold schools and districts accountable. Tennessee's plan includes assigning individual schools letter grades ranging from A to F based on how their students are performing and improving.

Under the plan, 60 percent of a district's grade will be based on the success of teaching the entire student population, and the other 40 percent will look at how well the district taught specific populations like low-income students.

Interim Superintendent Buzz Thomas also recently corresponded with McQueen about his concerns with the rating system, calling the single letter grades "unwise, unfair and counterproductive."

Instead, he suggested the state "give us more grades" that reflect gains in specific curriculum areas, attendance, parent engagement, teacher morale and other measures.

"Branding a school with a single grade, on the other hand, could be both misleading and demoralizing," Thomas wrote. "I can only imagine how it’s going to play in the African-American community when we place an F on several of their beloved, neighborhood schools.

"Yes, we need to be accountable. But a failing grade here is really a failing grade of the community – not the school. High poverty and high crime ravage people, and the schools those people attend will reflect those community realities."

"Branding a school with a single grade, on the other hand, could be both misleading and demoralizing," Thomas wrote. "I can only imagine how it’s going to play in the African-American community when we place an F on several of their beloved, neighborhood schools."

--Interim Knox County Schools Superintendent Buzz Thomas

Knox County school board member Amber Rountree(Photo: Submitted)

School board members heard a presentation at last week's mid-month workshop on how the rating system works. The explanation, which came with a 22-slide power point presentation, baffled board member Tony Norman.

"I’m just perplexed by the rating system," Norman said. "It’s so needlessly complicated. It’s not helpful."

Rountree pointed to a lack of research suggesting ratings improve student performance and argued the system is one-dimensional.

"With all data we have available, to flatten that down to one little letter grade is not beneficial to any stakeholder," Rountree said. "I would liken it to giving kids just one grade for every single subject in school. That wouldn’t adequately convey their skills and abilities, and that would apply to our schools as well."

The resolution would ask the state to work with districts to design "internal systems of assessment and accountability that, while meeting general state standards, allows districts to innovate and customize curriculum and instruction."

This is the third resolution on a statewide issue that Rountree has proposed since the school year began. She also backed a measure asking the state not to use student test scores in teacher evaluations this year and a resolution condemning school vouchers.

"I think looking at that language (in the resolution), it's really to allow the districts to have more input in whatever system is developed," Rountree said.